Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) are phrases used to describe a broad set of activities supported by multi-module application software that helps a company or merchant manage the important parts of its business. Computerized ERP and CRM systems typically handle the logistics of various activity modules internal to a business or organization, such as accounting/financial management, customer relations management, supply chain management and human resource management. Often, ERP and CRM systems use or are integrated with a relational database management system, such as Microsoft® SQL Server®. Examples of ERP system and CRM software packages include Microsoft® Dynamics™ AX, Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP, Microsoft® Dynanmics™ NAV, Microsoft® Dynamicsυ SL and Microsoft® Dynamics™ CRM.
ERP and CRM systems utilize a large number of files that are part of a collection of information that is stored in a database shared by the various management application modules. These files represent widely varying types of information, for example including information related to transactions such as sales orders, purchase orders and bill payments and information related to reference data, such as customer profiles and shipping parameters.
A database management system uses a model-driven framework to model data that is part of the collection of information stored by the ERP or CRM system. The data can be stored in entity relationship databases that use UML (unified modeling language). An entity is a relational database data structure, which manages data. The entity preserves its internal data and the integrity of its relationships with other entities. Data of the entity is defined through its properties. In addition, entities use associations to describe relationships between entities.
In general, a database management system that an ERP or CRM system uses or is integrated with also includes reporting services for creating reports to organize and render information collected by the ERP or CRM system. However, reporting services in a database management system can be complicated and difficult to use for creating and changing reports. For example, reporting services in a database management system need to manually specify data sources as well as commands, parameters and fields used for each graphical element of the report. To change a command or data source would require adding, removing or modifying data fields.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.